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NetKAT: semantic foundations for networks

Authors:

Carolyn Jane Anderson,

Jean-Baptiste Jeannin,

Cole Schlesinger,

David WalkerAuthors Info & Claims

POPL '14: Proceedings of the 41st ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages

Pages 113 - 126

https://doi.org/10.1145/2535838.2535862

Published: 08 January 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Recent years have seen growing interest in high-level languages for programming networks. But the design of these languages has been largely ad hoc, driven more by the needs of applications and the capabilities of network hardware than by foundational principles. The lack of a semantic foundation has left language designers with little guidance in determining how to incorporate new features, and programmers without a means to reason precisely about their code.

This paper presents NetKAT, a new network programming language that is based on a solid mathematical foundation and comes equipped with a sound and complete equational theory. We describe the design of NetKAT, including primitives for filtering, modifying, and transmitting packets; union and sequential composition operators; and a Kleene star operator that iterates programs. We show that NetKAT is an instance of a canonical and well-studied mathematical structure called a Kleene algebra with tests (KAT) and prove that its equational theory is sound and complete with respect to its denotational semantics. Finally, we present practical applications of the equational theory including syntactic techniques for checking reachability, proving non-interference properties that ensure isolation between programs, and establishing the correctness of compilation algorithms.

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Cited By

ten Cate BKappé T(2025)Algebras for Deterministic Computation Are Inherently IncompleteProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/37048619:POPL(718-744)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704861
Zhang CKappé TNarváez DNaus N(2025)CF-GKAT: Efficient Validation of Control-Flow TransformationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/37048579:POPL(600-626)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704857
Campbell EHojjat HFoster N(2024)Computing Precise Control Interface SpecificationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897438:OOPSLA2(905-934)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689743
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Index Terms

NetKAT: semantic foundations for networks
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Context specific languages
      1. Specialized application languages

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

POPL '14: Proceedings of the 41st ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages

January 2014

702 pages

ISBN:9781450325448

DOI:10.1145/2535838

General Chair:
Suresh Jagannathan
Purdue University, USA
,
Program Chair:
Peter Sewell
University of Cambridge, UK

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 49, Issue 1
POPL '14
January 2014
661 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2578855
Editor:
Mark W. Bailey
Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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SIGACT: ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory

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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 08 January 2014

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POPL '14: The 41st Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages

January 22 - 24, 2014

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POPL '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 51 of 220 submissions, 23%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 824 of 4,130 submissions, 20%

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Cited By

ten Cate BKappé T(2025)Algebras for Deterministic Computation Are Inherently IncompleteProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/37048619:POPL(718-744)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704861
Zhang CKappé TNarváez DNaus N(2025)CF-GKAT: Efficient Validation of Control-Flow TransformationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/37048579:POPL(600-626)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704857
Campbell EHojjat HFoster N(2024)Computing Precise Control Interface SpecificationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897438:OOPSLA2(905-934)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689743
Gao XGao JG KZhai ENarayana SSivaraman A(2024)Cross-Platform Transpilation of Packet-Processing Programs using Program SynthesisProceedings of the 8th Asia-Pacific Workshop on Networking10.1145/3663408.3663419(74-80)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663408.3663419
Różowski WSilva ASobocinski PLago UEsparza J(2024)A Completeness Theorem for Probabilistic Regular ExpressionsProceedings of the 39th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science10.1145/3661814.3662084(1-14)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
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Moeller MJacobs JBelanger ODarais DSchlesinger CSmolka SFoster NSilva A(2024)KATch: A Fast Symbolic Verifier for NetKATProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36564548:PLDI(1905-1928)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656454
Cutler JWatson CNkurumeh EHilliard PGoldstein HStanford CPierce B(2024)Stream TypesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36564348:PLDI(1412-1436)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2024
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Wang CScazzariello MFarshin AFerlin SKostić DChiesa M(2024)NetConfEval: Can LLMs Facilitate Network Configuration?Proceedings of the ACM on Networking10.1145/36562962:CoNEXT2(1-25)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2024
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Xu XYuan YKincaid ZKrishnamurthy AMahajan RWalker DZhai ESekar VYu MSeneviratne AVeitch D(2024)Relational Network VerificationProceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2024 Conference10.1145/3651890.3672238(213-227)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2024
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Chu DPanchapakesan RLaddad SKatahanas LLiu CShivakumar KCrooks NHellerstein JHoward H(2024)Optimizing Distributed Protocols with Query RewritesProceedings of the ACM on Management of Data10.1145/36392572:1(1-25)Online publication date: 26-Mar-2024
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